LONDON: New figures confirmed that the six successive quarters of negative growth from spring 2008 until autumn 2009 were the toughest for the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, harsher even than the slump of the early 1980s.
Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the peak to trough decline in output was 6.4% of gross domestic product rather than the original 6.2% estimate.
Growth resumed in the final three months of 2009 as the UK economy responded to the emergency cuts in interest rates, the cheaper pound and higher government spending.
The ONS made no changes to its estimate of a 0.4% expansion in the fourth quarter of last year or its 0.3% growth estimate for the first quarter of 2010, but said the role of government spending in the first three months of this year in underpinning the economy had been more significant than first thought.
Consumer spending fell slightly in the first three months of 2010.
